ULYSSES

When I was at university, I won an academic prize worth £100. Since £100, even in those days, was never going to make me rich, I decided to spend it on books. The complete works of Shakespeare, the Bible, a history of Britain in 15 volumes, that sort of thing. Most of the books have remained unopened since; though they have dutifully followed me around the world from London to Brussels to London to Lesotho to Brighton to London to Tanzania to Denmark. Packing and unpacking them at regular intervals has become part of my life.

The list also included Ulysses, by James Joyce. At various times I have taken it down from the shelf and flicked through it, intending to start it. But until recently, the intent was all. Now, however, I can proudly say that I have finished it. Not in a madcap, unputdownable week - as with Wolf Hall - but painfully and laboriously over three months or so.

First published in 1922, Ulysses is a hard book to read. Its 700-odd pages take place on a single day in 1904, as the main character wanders around Dublin in much the same way as Ulysses himself wandered around the Mediterranean following the sack of Troy. There is quite a lot of Latin, Italian and French. There is also quite a lot about the Catholic church, classical allegories, and Irish history around the turn of the century; and an awful lot of detail about the geographical layout and social events of Dublin itself. But nothing much happens.

I can live with that, and I might even have found it interesting. But what makes it really hard is the English itself. Try this for a sentence.

"Universally that person's acumen is esteemed very little perceptive concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitably by mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in them high mind's ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being equal by no exterior splendour is the prosperity of a nation more efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferent continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when fortunately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipollent nature's incorrupted benefaction."

Got it? And that is by no means the longest or most complex sentence in the book. It used to be said that David Bowie, in generating the lyrics for his songs, wrote them out on pieces of paper, and then cut them up and pasted them randomly. Reading Ulysses, I often got the impression that Joyce's typesetter had had pretty much the same idea.

You can easily see that Joyce's literary structure and setting were revolutionary. You can also see that with its frequent references to sex and bodily functions, it was too strong a meat for some of the censors of the 1920's. But at the end of the day, is Ulysses any good? Having laboriously ploughed my way through it, my humble opinion is a crisp "no".

Walter Blotscher